[Embodied inequalities: challenges for psychosomatic medicine]

Abstract

Even though highly criticized, the reductionist biomedical paradigm dominates medicine until today. This downplays that we as humans are not only biological organisms but simultaneously also social beings which live in socially organized societies. Disease and premature mortality are thus embodied expressions of the conditions under which we live and work. The paper outlines that a large part of prevailing diseases are strongly influenced by social, economic and political determinants and analyses how social inequalities get under the skin and cause adverse health. Considering social as well as biological processes can generate new evidence, how we biologically incorporate our lived experience and thus create social patterns of health and illness not only in societies but also between societies.